The Untold Story of Facebook Video
Every product or feature usually goes through a journey. It is not always possible to get everything right on the first go. Sometimes, all it takes is a revamp of an existing feature or product for it to become a huge success. In the following excerpt from Move Fast: How Facebook Builds Software, coming out July 6, I discuss the story behind Facebook Video and how Peter Hunt turned it into a feature used by millions. Subscribe to this newsletter for daily advance content from the book.
Pete Hunt is a Facebook engineer who joined the company in 2011. Pete is six-foot-four with a towering frame and a curly mop of hair. His default expression is a lighthearted, goofy smile, but Pete becomes a serious, imposing figure once he starts to discuss matters of software. Today, Pete’s reputation among engineers precedes him. Large crowds gather at his conference talks, and his Internet comments about JavaScript frameworks are widely quoted.
When he joined Facebook, Pete started working on Facebook Video. “Video was a hackathon project from two or three years before I joined and nobody was maintaining it. It wasn’t a source of revenue for the company.”
